UT gets additional Rs 263 cr funds from Centre

To help the Chandigarh administration meet its requirements, the Centre has allocated additional fund of around Rs 263 crore under the non-plan head. The administration had requested the Centre for additional budget of around Rs 314 crore, of which the government agreed to give Rs 263 crore.

To help the Chandigarh administration meet its requirements, the Centre has allocated additional fund of around Rs 263 crore under the non-plan head.

The administration had requested the Centre for additional budget of around Rs 314 crore, of which the government agreed to give Rs 263 crore.

UT finance secretary Sarvjit Singh said the additional fund would largely cater to expenditure of salaries, compensation for land acquisition and other recurring expenses.

Recently, the administration announced to increase dearness allowance (DA) from the existing rate of 100% to 107% with effect from July 1, 2014. According to the order issued, the employees will be paid DA in cash. There are more than 20,000 employees working in different departments of the administration and the decision has pushed the salary bill considerably.

For the current financial year, the Centre had fixed the ceiling of plan budget to Rs 813 crore, while under the non-plan budget, the administration received Rs 2,730.25 crore. The union government had slashed the budget of administration under the plan budget by 7.26% as compared to last financial year.

According to senior officials, a considerable part of the funds under the plan head are being utilised for health, urban development, education, transport, housing, science and technology, power and heritage conservation.

According to sources, many departments are lagging behind the schedule in the execution of projects in the current financial year.

Though the non-plan budget was marginally increased by 4.38% for the financial year 2014-15, the government allocated less funds for salary component as demanded by the administration.

However, the Centre had last year turned down the request of the UT administration to provide additional funds of around Rs 200 crore under the non-plan budget. The Centre had asked the local administration to manage the affairs with available resources.